Post navigation

The Spew Effect

Call it what you want: vomit, throw up, barf, getting sick, puke, heave, hurl… shall I go on? Probably not. (I don’t actually expect many people to read past here… but hang in there if you can).

We all have a gag reflex, and it’s a natural instinct that when someone throws up, we gag. Some are more susceptible to this than others, but we all have it. It’s like the worst empathetic reaction ever.

When it comes to actual vomiting I do not have a sensitive gag reflex, but when it comes to word vomit I do. Especially these days.

We’re not doing so well, are we? I mean we’re not in my little corner of the world. We’re pissy, we’re raw, we’re sensitive, we’re unable to contain our emotions at things that would normally roll off our back.

So we word vomit, we word vomit (if you’re like me) on someone we love because they’re safe. It could be a legit thing or not – chances are the thing that is causing you to vomit has very little to do with the person in front of you that you’re vomiting all over.

So… what happens now? The person gags. Maybe they gag and vomit on you, or maybe the sickness that has now transferred to them is lingering until the next moment and then BAM! They vomit all over someone else. Then they get the disease and spew to their people and they call a friend and spew to them and so on and so forth.

This cycle continues over and over and over again until it finally hits someone with a healthy immune system and is able to walk away unscathed.

I used to be that person, but not today. My vices are gone. I’m just off. And before you ask I’m doing all my self-care stuff but the world is a hard place, and we are all suffering. I am seeing my therapist, I am exercising (although I could ALWAYS do more) I am taking time away from social media but none of it is working. I still feel nauseous.

I usually chalk it up to an existential crisis, but the reality is, we’re all feeling this way. We are having a national existential crisis. We don’t know who we are anymore. We’re not confident in where we’re going or what the point of any of it is. We feel absolutely hopeless.

So we get mad at something, little things grate on our nerves and we blow up and spew all over the place and then they spew… and well, you get it. The leader of the free world is one big stomach flu infecting the world. It is makes us sick.

Friends, I don’t know what to tell you, but, we have to get better. We have to find a cure or an antidote. Even Star Wars Movies aren’t cutting it… and that’s saying something.

Usually I give the advice at this time to a person or a couple going through this, “be really good to yourselves” but I at least for me, it’s not working. I’m not doing such a good job right now caring for those I’m supposed to care for because I, the one who is supposed to be healthy, is spewing all over the place.

I don’t know what to tell us, except to acknowledge it, and possibly, embrace it… Let’s have moments where we “sound [our] barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world” like Walt Whitman. We need more screaming matches and physical activity to get this pent up frustration out. Hell, maybe we all just need to be having more sex!

We cannot function on this high of stress level. At worst we’re killing ourselves, and at best we’re weakening our immune systems to a point where we will have no defense left, no person to make the cycle stop.

So, yawp it up friends, and let’s do our best to contain our spewing to the places it causes the least harm.